Prison chiefs prepare to back union for inmates

By Matt Born

12:00AM GMT 19 Feb 2001

THE Prison Service is poised to approve a trade union for inmates in a move to improve jail conditions.

The service believes that the union could counter the power of the Prison Officers' Association, which it sees increasingly as one of the main obstacles to reform. The decision to approve the Association of Prisoners represents a U-turn for the service, which greeted the idea with hostility when it was first mooted last year.

Following legal advice, however, the service has accepted that prisoners have the right to form an association, subject to restrictions, under the Human Rights Act. Furthermore, it appears to have decided that there could be potential benefits from having an "alternative" voice within the system.

Jeff Underwood, of the Prison Administration Group, who is the official in charge of assessing the union's legal claim, said: "As long as the association is not a threat to security or the good order of prisons there's no reason to object, and it could prove quite useful."

Mr Underwood has written to lawyers acting on the prisoners' behalf with a list of more than 20 questions about how the union would work. The questions concern only relatively minor practical issues, such as the collection of subscriptions, how inmates join and leave, and whether membership would be open to ex-convicts.

Martin Narey, the Prison Service director general, threatened to resign this month unless staff backed his efforts to end the "litany of failure and moral neglect" in jails. Describing some of his 135 prisons as "hell holes", where inmates were treated "as a sub-species", he said he intended to push through reforms "whatever the POA opposition". A senior Prison Service source said: "In the past we have not wanted to encourage prisoner unions. But now we can see there may be a silver lining."

Even before gaining formal recognition, the union has established branches in 22 prisons across the country. Prisoners intend to use it to demand better work and living conditions, including television and radios in every cell, internet access, better wages, voting rights and conjugal visits.

The union is the brainchild of John Hirst, who is serving a life sentence for the manslaughter of his 69-year-old landlady with an axe.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said recognition of the association could help the long-term rehabilitation of inmates. She said: "Staff and prisoners have to live and work together in these institutions, so they should all have some say in how they are run." Elkin Abrahamson, a solicitor at A S Law, who is representing the AOP, said: "The Prison Service seems to have realised the benefits of an alternative body."